Business Strategy Expert Speaks at NUI Galway

Thursday, 13 March 2008

The role of the business 'Strategy Director' will be the subject of a talk at NUI Galway on Wednesday, 19 March, by Professor Duncan Angwin of the Warwick Business School, Warwick University. Professor Angwin, a fellow of Saïd Business School, Oxford, is co-author of the recently published The Strategy Pathfinder.

The free public event is part of a series of talks on business and innovation by leading international figures and will take place at 7pm at the EMBA Suite, Cairnes Graduate School of Business and Public Policy, NUI Galway. The series is supported by Enterprise Ireland in collaboration with NUI Galway's Centre for Innovation and Structural Change.

Professor Angwin will discuss the rise of strategy formulation by functional officers resulting in strategic marketing, strategic IT and strategic operations in various contexts. Therefore, little attention has been paid to those senior executives specifically tasked with being 'Strategy Directors' – defined as senior (non CEO) executives. Professor Angwin will question what distinctive role the Strategy Director performs if everyone else is now a strategist. He will also query whether these senior executives are obsolete or do they carry out a critical and largely unsung function.

According to Dr. James Cunningham, Centre for Innovation and Structural Change, NUI Galway, "Whether strategy is born out of the functional departments of a business or at a more senior dedicated level, is an interesting question. This seminar aims to address these questions and present current empirical research from the UK. Professor Angwin is an expert in this field and the talk will be of interest to those with an interest in the evolving machinations of business strategy".